Year: 2024

Everyone who works with Keanu Reeves says the same thing: he is the best person to ever happen to the world (in so many words). So it’s not surprising that another one of Reeves’ co-stars confirmed what we all know.

Reeves first worked with Shōgun‘s Hiroyuki Sanada on 2013’s fantasy drama 47 Ronin. He was already a well-known actor at that point, but when the two reunited a decade later for John Wick Chapter 4, Sanada was relieved to learn that all of that Wick fame hadn’t gone to his head.

“[Keanu] was so humble, very kind to others but very hard on himself,” Sanada told People. “Ten years later, when I met him again for John Wick [Chapter 4], he hadn’t changed. He was even more of a success, but his humbleness and kindness to others hadn’t changed.”

It appears that fame only make Reeves want to be a better actor, no matter how big his celebrity reach became.”That’s why he became that big, I thought,” Sanada explained. “He’s always trying to do his best: aim higher, move forward. It’s a great energy.” It’s no surprise that Reeves is in fact a Virgo.

Such “a great energy” is just another reason that Reeves and Sandra Bullock should reunite for a third Speed. Also, it should be called Sp33d.

Meanwhile, you can catch Sanada in Shōgun, which was reportedly renewed for a second go around.

(Via People)

Zayn is offering up a fresh sound and more intimate perspective with Room Under The Stairs, his fourth solo studio album due out on Friday, May 17. In February, Rolling Stone reported that the former One Direction star co-produced the album with “one of Nashville’s most accomplished and in-demand producers” Dave Cobb (Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton, Lady Gaga) to “explore new sonic territory and lean into pairing his unmistakable vocals with live instrumentation” to reflect his day-to-day living in rural Pennsylvania.

Will fans have the opportunity to hear Zayn’s country-leaning tone atop live instrumentation in concert?

Will Zayn Go On Tour For His Room Under The Stairs Album?

As of this writing, Zayn has not announced a tour. However, Zayn will perform a one-night-only Room Under The Stairs concert at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London on May 17, and the seemingly high probability of Zayn staging a full-blown headlining tour in support of the album was addressed within a newly published Nylon cover story, as excerpted below.

“There are other things Zayn is willing to leave the compound for. Like going on his first tour since his One Direction days, something that once seemed about as likely as an Oasis reunion. The crippling anxiety Zayn previously cited as a reason for avoiding the stage has gotten easier with time. ‘I’ve definitely learned to communicate my feelings in a way better manner. I can articulate myself in a way better sense than I could six, seven years ago,’ he says. But it’s also what the new songs deserve. ‘This type of music that I’m making just feels like the type of music I would perform. It makes sense in my mind.”

With his other albums, a tour would have required too much of a production: splashy visuals, backup dancers. (If you’re going to perform a banger like ‘Like I Would,’ somebody should be dancing, and it certainly wasn’t going to be Zayn.) He’s excited about the idea of reimagining some songs from other albums and bringing them into this new sound. ‘I haven’t been on stage for such a long time, I have a bit of a hunger for it. I feel like I have something to give again,’ he says. ‘I just didn’t want to be there before. Who wants to come watch a person that doesn’t want to be stuck there?”

Zayn’s vision for his live show is a lot like the environment he made these songs in: a small band to back him up, a rug on the floor, a stool to sit on, maybe a guitar for himself, and a mic. ‘Not too many fancy tricks,’ he says.”

Room Under The Stairs is out 5/17 via Mercury/Republic. Find more information here.

Luka Doncic put forth a sensational effort in Game 5 in Oklahoma City, as his 31 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds lifted the Mavs to a crucial win to reclaim control of the series and create a series-clinching situation in Game 6 back home in Dallas.

The MVP finalist hadn’t looked fully like himself as he deals with a knee issue, but he had also grown increasingly involved with the officials, as Lu Dort’s aggressive and physical defense wore on him. Doncic seemed at times more focused on trying to get Dort in foul trouble than he was at playing his game, and that eliminated some of the Mavs’ offensive rhythm.

That all changed in Game 5, as Doncic seemed to take a very different approach. He seemed much more jovial on the court, even as he dealt out trash talk to the Thunder fans chirping him courtside. Doncic also spent less time berating officials for not giving him calls. That isn’t to say he went the game without complaints, but they were quicker and he seemed to move on from his frustration faster. The result was noticeable, and after the game he told Jared Greenberg that was, in fact, by design.

As Doncic noted, he needed to play the game with joy again and remember, “this is the thing I love.” That seemed to be the case in Game 5, and if he can capture that mentality going forward, the Mavs will likely reap the benefits. Whether it was Doncic himself recognizing he needed to change his focus or someone on Dallas’ staff pointing out how involved he was with the officials, the message got through. He’s certainly more enjoyable to watch when he’s pouring in buckets and rifling pinpoint passes to teammates, rather than trying to grift his way to the foul line, and hopefully we get more of this version of Luka the rest of the postseason.

On Saturday, May 18 the fourth annual Just Live Heaven Festival descends on the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, with headliners The Postal Service and The War On Drugs. See below for the list of set times.

Dedicated to one of the last true ERAS of popular music — in this case, the indie/alt explosion of the mid-late aughts — the one-day festival also celebrates the 20th anniversaries of some of the scene’s most pivotal releases, including The Postal Service’s Give Up and Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism. The festival also marks Swedish electropop group Miike Snow’s first performance since 2019.

In Uproxx’s review of the 2023 edition of Just Like Heaven, Carolyn Droke called it “a nostalgic stroll through indie rock Memory Lane,” and praised performances by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, MGMT, and more. “It was an ideal environment to bask in the collective nostalgia of early to mid-aughts indie rock, reminisce on the genre’s heyday,” she wrote, “And (hopefully) inspire a new generation of indie music lovers.”

Orion Stage

Them Jeans (12:15-45), Be Your Own Pet (12:50-1:20), CSS (1:25-2:00), The Return of Gossip (2:05-2:40), Sleigh Bells (2:45-3:23), Tegan And Sara (3:30-4:10), Phantogram (4:15-4:50), Two Door Cinema Club (5:00-5:45), Passion Pit (6:00-6:45), Death Cab For Cutie (7:10-8:00), Phoenix (8:25-9:15), The Postal Service (9:55-10:55)

Stardust Stage

Chris Cruise (12:00-12:45), The Go! Team (12:50-1:25), Warpaint (1:55-2:30), Broken Social Scene (3:00-3:40), Washed Out (4:10-4:50), Alvvays (5:20-6:05), Metric (6:35-7:20), Miike Snow (7:50-8:35), The War On Drugs (9:05-9:55)

History is full of great stories about bitter battles between loyal opposition. In basketball, there was Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. In the ’80s, harsh political battles were fought between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill. But all of these rivals respected their opposition as competitors in their respective fields. Now, a year-long battle between a cleaning crew and a street artist can be added to history’s legendary battles between loyal opposition.

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Mobstr is a London-based street artist famous for the sarcastic typographic-based graffiti he’s written across London’s walls and billboards. His cat-and-mouse relationship with an unidentified city worker began on July 17, 2014, and would continue for an entire year.

“I cycled past this wall on the way to work for years,” Mobstr wrote on his website. ” I noticed that graffiti painted within the red area was ‘buffed’ with red paint. However, graffiti outside of the red area would be removed via pressure washing. This prompted the start of an experiment. Unlike other works, I was very uncertain as to what results it would yield.”

Watch the video below and see what happens:

This article originally appeared on 09.23.17.

Kid Cudi is experiencing the highest of highs and lowest of lows — from announcing his engagement and staging a surprise Coachella 2024 set to breaking his foot during his Coachella set and subsequently canceling his Insano World Tour.

We’re back to the good news portion of the cycle, as Cudi posted two videos on X (formerly Twitter) to update his fans on his recovery and Insano World Tour before sneaking in mention of imminent new music.

“I’m all good,” he said in the first video. “I’m feeling fantastic. Healing is going great. Therapy has been great. No pain. I think I’m gonna bounce back from this stronger than ever, so there’s that. We have rescheduled about 80 percent of the tour. […] We just have to lock in some dates, but I’ll give you guys a heads up on when that will be.”

Cudi explained that his Insano World Tour was “gonna be physically demanding, so I might have to change some things, depending on how my recovery goes,” but overall, he’s optimistic.

And then, Cudi spent five minutes hyping up his next batch of music.

“I started something toward the end of the year last year that I really think is something special,” he said. “I want to give you a taste of it soon. Hopefully, before summer is up, you’ll hear something — something tasty, something new. Every album is a reinvention, yeah? You’ve known me. You know I always like to switch it up, try something new, [and] challenge myself. I think this is gonna remind people of the days where I was really trying to explore and try to feel something in the music.”

Cudi referenced his past classics like “Up Up & Away,” “Erase Me,” and “Heart Of A Lion” as the sort of “anthems” he’s aiming to reproduce with his forthcoming album, except “elevated” to represent “me now, happy, in a new place.”

Watch Cudi’s videos below.

Last night, at an album listening event at Barclays Center arena in Brooklyn, New York, Billie Eilish couldn’t contain her excitement for the release of her third studio album, Hit Me Hard And Soft. Three years after the release of her last album, Happier Than Ever, who could blame her? The sentiment is likely one felt by much of her fanbase. So, when will Hit Me Hard And Soft be available to stream on DSPs like Apple Music and Spotify?

With a release date of May 17, Billie’s new album will almost certainly be available to stream at midnight Eastern time, 9 PM Pacific.

Fans will be taking in the album as a whole, as Eilish stated that she did not want to release singles this album cycle, which she compared to having nudes leaked during one interview. That didn’t stop her from teasing songs from the album ahead of its rollout, such as the lewd “Lunch,” which she played during a surprise DJ set at Coachella. Meanwhile, another song, “Birds Of A Feather,” found its way into a trailer for the Netflix show Heartstopper. Still, Billie wanted fans to hear the album in full, so you can give it a spin when it hits streamers in just a few hours.

Yesterday, May 15, Omar Apollo announced God Said No, a new album, and teased a single coming today. Well, “Dispose Of Me” is here now and it’s an emotional slow-burner.

A press release explains the album’s title, “The album title is Omar’s interpretation of ‘lo que sera, sera,’ which translates to ‘whatever will be, will be’ or ‘it is what it is.’ The phrase embodies the album with Omar’s tongue-in-cheek humorous outlook on the suffering that comes from surrendering and accepting whatever is thrown at you by life, a relationship, or lover. […] The 14-track album is a survey of the emotional wreckage that followed the end of a torrid love affair. Apollo borrowed the title from something his friend said while processing the relationship. ‘I gave it my everything,’ Apollo says, ‘and God said ‘no.””

Another interesting note from the press release is that the project features Pedro Pascal. He doesn’t have a feature credit on any song, so it’s not currently clear how exactly he’s involved.

Listen to “Dispose Of Me” above. Apollo also shared a live performance version of the song today, which you can find below.

Omar Apollo’s God Said No Album Cover Artwork

Omar Apollo’s God Said No Tracklist

1. “Be Careful With Me”
2. “Spite”
3. “Less Of You”
4. “Done With You”
5. “Plane Trees” Feat. Mustafa
6. “Drifting”
7. “Empty”
8. “Life’s Unfair”
9. “Against Me”
10. “While U Can”
11. “Dispose Of Me”
12. “How”
13. “Pedro”
14. “Glow”

God Said No is out 6/28 via Warner Records. Find more information here.

Imagine you’re working at a school and one of the kids is starting to act up. What do you do?

Traditionally, the answer would be to give the unruly kid detention or suspension.

But in my memory, detention tended to involve staring at walls, bored out of my mind, trying to either surreptitiously talk to the kids around me without getting caught or trying to read a book. If it was designed to make me think about my actions, it didn’t really work. It just made everything feel stupid and unfair.

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But Robert W. Coleman Elementary School has been doing something different when students act out: offering meditation.

Instead of punishing disruptive kids or sending them to the principal’s office, the Baltimore school has something called the Mindful Moment Room instead.

The room looks nothing like your standard windowless detention room. Instead, it’s filled with lamps, decorations, and plush purple pillows. Misbehaving kids are encouraged to sit in the room and go through practices like breathing or meditation, helping them calm down and re-center. They are also asked to talk through what happened.

Meditation and mindfulness are pretty interesting, scientifically.

Mindful meditation has been around in some form or another for thousands of years. Recently, though, science has started looking at its effects on our minds and bodies, and it’s finding some interesting effects.

One study, for example, suggested that mindful meditation could give practicing soldiers a kind of mental armor against disruptive emotions, and it can improve memory too. Another suggested mindful meditation could improve a person’s attention span and focus.

Individual studies should be taken with a grain of salt (results don’t always carry in every single situation), but overall, science is starting to build up a really interesting picture of how awesome meditation can be. Mindfulness in particular has even become part of certain fairly successful psychotherapies.

Back at the school, the Mindful Moment Room isn’t the only way Robert W. Coleman Elementary has been encouraging its kids.

The meditation room was created as a partnership with the Holistic Life Foundation, a local nonprofit that runs other programs as well. For more than 10 years the foundation has been offering the after-school program Holistic Me, where kids from pre-K through the fifth grade practice mindfulness exercises and yoga.

“It’s amazing,” said Kirk Philips, the Holistic Me coordinator at Robert W. Coleman. “You wouldn’t think that little kids would meditate in silence. And they do.”

There was a Christmas party, for example, where the kids knew they were going to get presents but were still expected to do meditation first.”As a little kid, that’s got to be hard to sit down and meditate when you know you’re about to get a bag of gifts, and they did it! It was beautiful, we were all smiling at each other watching them,” said Philips.

The kids may even be bringing that mindfulness back home with them. In the August 2016 issue of Oprah Magazine, Holistic Life Foundation co-founder Andres Gonzalez said: “We’ve had parents tell us, ‘I came home the other day stressed out, and my daughter said, “Hey, Mom, you need to sit down. I need to teach you how to breathe.'”

The program also helps mentor and tutor the kids, as well as teach them about the environment.

They help clean up local parks, build gardens, and visit nearby farms. Philips said they even teach kids to be co-teachers, letting them run the yoga sessions.

This isn’t just happening at one school, either. Lots of schools are trying this kind of holistic thinking, and it’s producing incredible results.

In the U.K., for example, the Mindfulness in Schools Project is teaching adults how to set up programs. Mindful Schools, another nonprofit, is helping to set up similar programs in the United States.

Oh, and by the way, the schools are seeing a tangible benefit from this program, too.

Philips said that at Robert W. Coleman Elementary, there have been exactly zero suspensions last year and so far this year. Meanwhile, nearby Patterson Park High School, which also uses the mindfulness programs, said suspension rates dropped and attendance increased as well.

Is that wholly from the mindfulness practices? It’s impossible to say, but those are pretty remarkable numbers, all the same.

This article originally appeared on 09.22.16

Fifth-grade teacher Emily E. Smith is not your ordinary teacher.

She founded The Hive Society — a classroom that’s all about inspiring children to learn more about their world … and themselves — by interacting with literature and current events. Students watch TED talks, read Rolling Stone, and analyze infographics. She even has a long-distance running club to encourage students to take care of their minds and bodies.

Smith is such an awesome teacher, in fact, that she recently received the 2015 Donald H. Graves Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Writing.

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It had always been her dream to work with children in urban areas, so when Smith started teaching, she hit the ground running. She had her students making podcasts, and they had in-depth discussions about their readings on a cozy carpet.

But in her acceptance speech for her award, she made it clear that it took a turning point in her career before she really got it:

“Things changed for me the day when, during a classroom discussion, one of my kids bluntly told me I “couldn’t understand because I was a white lady.” I had to agree with him. I sat there and tried to speak openly about how I could never fully understand and went home and cried, because my children knew about white privilege before I did. The closest I could ever come was empathy.”

Smith knew that just acknowledging her white privilege wasn’t enough.

She wanted to move beyond just empathy and find a way to take some real action that would make a difference for her students.

She kept the same innovative and engaging teaching methods, but she totally revamped her curriculum to include works by people who looked like her students. She also carved out more time to discuss issues that her students were facing, such as xenophobia and racism.

And that effort? Absolutely worth it.

As she said in her acceptance speech:

“We studied the works of Sandra Cisneros, Pam Munoz Ryan, and Gary Soto, with the intertwined Spanish language and Latino culture — so fluent and deep in the memories of my kids that I saw light in their eyes I had never seen before.”

The changes Smith made in her classroom make a whole lot of sense. And they’re easy enough for teachers everywhere to make:

— They studied the work of historical Latino figures, with some of the original Spanish language included. Many children of color are growing up in bilingual households. In 2007, 55.4 million Americans 5 years of age and older spoke a language other than English at home.

— They analyzed the vision of America that great writers of color sought to create. And her students realized that our country still isn’t quite living up to its ideals. Despite progress toward racial equality with the end of laws that enforced slavery or segregation, we still have a long way to go. Black people still fare worse than white people when it comes to things like wealth, unfair arrests, and health.

— They read excerpts from contemporary writers of color, like Ta-Nehisi Coates who writes about race. Her students are reading and learning from a diverse group of writers. No small thing when they live in a society that overwhelmingly gives more attention to white male writers (and where the number of employees of color in the newspaper industry stagnates at a paltry 12%).

— They read about the Syrian crisis, and many students wrote about journeys across the border in their family history for class. The opportunity particularly struck one student; the assignment touched him so much that he cried. He never had a teacher honor the journey his family made. And he was proud of his heritage for the first time ever. “One child cried,” Smith shared, “and told me he never had a teacher who honored the journey his family took to the United States. He told me he was not ashamed anymore, but instead proud of the sacrifice his parents made for him.”

Opportunities like this will only increase as the number of children from immigrant families is steadily increasing. As of 2013, almost 17.4 million children under 18 have at least one immigrant parent.

Smith now identifies not just as an English teacher, but as a social justice teacher.

Smith’s successful shift in her teaching is an example for teachers everywhere, especially as our schools become increasingly ethnically and racially diverse. About 80% of American teachers are white. But as of last year, the majority of K-12 students in public schools are now children of color.

As America’s demographics change, we need to work on creating work that reflects the experiences that our students relate to. And a more diverse curriculum isn’t just important for students of color. It’s vital for everyone.

As Smith put it, “We, the teachers, are responsible for instilling empathy and understanding in the hearts of all kids. We are responsible for the future of this country.”

This article originally appeared on 12.07.15